


APart

by Braincoins



Series: Connection-verse [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (and I don't mean me this time), Angst, F/M, Insomnia, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, bad language words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 19:30:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8813407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Braincoins/pseuds/Braincoins
Summary: Shiro's restless and thinking over his options isn't helping. Is this just the lingering burdens of leadership or is something else eating at him?





	

**Author's Note:**

> The last lead-in to the next epic hellfic.
> 
> Reading [Connection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8587555) (and, honestly, the other short fics set in the same ‘verse) would probably help avoid confusion, but you probably don't really need it.
> 
> I didn't do a readout of this, even, because I was too busy crying over the MLS Cup, but I hope it's okay regardless.  
> =================================

            Shiro sat on the edge of his bunk and looked at his arm in the dark. He should’ve been sleeping, and he didn’t have the nightmares to blame this time. He just couldn’t get to sleep. He felt restless and unsettled.

            He wanted to see if Allura was still up, if he could ask her… but there was something in him that didn’t want that. _Some THING_ , he couldn’t help thinking.

            He yawned. His body was exhausted. He’d pushed himself hard today, first in flight training and then hours spent in combat against the drones on the training deck. He’d felt the need to move, to fight, to push harder and harder, and he wasn’t sure why, and apparently his attempts to burn all of that off had failed, because here he sat, staring at the Galra prosthetic.

            He wished it detached. He wished there was a way he could take it off, even just while sleeping. But he knew that he wouldn’t do that often, even if he could. He had to be ready for battle, always ready, ever vigilant, because who knew when Zarkon’s forces would strike next? Who knew when they would come for him again, for Allura, for everything and everyone he had left?

            Being a “Defender of the Universe” might have a nice ring to it, but it was a heavy burden. He’d thought he could shoulder it because he had to. That had always worked before.

            _I’m just tired._ He stroked the prosthetic forearm with his other hand. _It’s just an arm._ He tried not to remember what Pidge had said about the Galra energy in it. That was as useless as trying to kill himself by holding his breath. He couldn't _not_ think about it; it ping-ponged around in his head at random times, day and night.

            His nightmares weren’t improving. They were starting to be repetitive, even: violence and bloodshed, and he gloried in it every time, even when he hurt his friends. Sometimes _especially_ when he hurt his friends, and those scared him the most. In those dreams, he would feel glad to have severed those threads, to have nothing holding him back anymore. And he’d wake panicked, whispering apologies into the dark despite being the only one to hear them.

            He couldn’t tell anyone about them, not even Allura. He was afraid of what she’d say, how she’d react. It was a terror all its own, that she might look at him as a monster.

            _I’m being selfish again._ But he needed her, and he needed her not to be afraid of him. _I would never hurt her. I would never hurt any of them. It’s just a nightmare._ But it was one he couldn’t shake.

            He ought to go to her. If she was still awake, she could ease him into sleep with her energy, and maybe a soft kiss. He wanted to keep her with him, to pull her into his bed, just to sleep. Just to fall asleep next to her and wake up beside her in the morning. To know she was there, and she cared for him, that… that would help so much, even without her hands glowing.

            He activated his hand, watching the purple power lines shoot up along his arm before it illuminated fully. That this – this “souvenir” of his time in captivity – was his current light in the darkness seemed a joke. But he didn’t want the room lights on. The glow in his hand stopped. The darkness was preferable.

            He wanted to rip his arm off and throw it across the room. Throw it away entirely. Better to be without it than… but it was useful. The Galra had, for whatever reason, given him a tool and a weapon he could use against them. There was a poetic justice in that. _“You could’ve been our greatest weapon,”_ the druid had told him. He was determined to turn that weapon against them, to make them pay for what they’d done to him and to so many other people.

            For now, he just wanted to sleep. He didn’t want to think about the Galra energy in his arm. He didn’t want to think about strategy and fighting. He didn’t want to think about the Black Lion or saving the universe.

            He wanted to lay down next to Allura, to cuddle and kiss her and fall asleep with her in his arms. He wanted a lot more than that if he was being honest, but right now he couldn’t really consider it. It would take too much energy, and he… he was so tired.

            _Everyone has their limits._ He felt like he’d been straining at his for a while now. Most of the time it didn’t bother him. When he was in the Black Lion, he felt strong and supported. When he was hanging out with the guys, he felt like he was part of a team that would always have his back. When he was with Allura, he felt as if he’d have a partner to help him carry his burdens.

            But alone, in the dark, it was just him and the nightmares and this _fucking arm that I never asked for and never wanted. Did I even need a new arm or did you just hack off the old one for your twisted experiments, you sick fucking…_

            He exhaled and closed his eyes, trying to be rid of the anger pulsing through him. He tried to focus and center. He just wanted to be himself again. He wanted to sleep and wake up and not feel like there was some alien _thing_ trying to take over his mind. _Is it vengeance?_ he wondered. _Am I getting too obsessed?_

            He didn’t think so, but maybe that was part of the problem. Maybe he couldn’t see his own problems clearly. _Patience_ , he counseled himself, as he’d often counseled Keith (and Lance. And sometimes Pidge and Hunk, while he was at it). _This won’t happen overnight._

            _Right now, the only thing I want to happen overnight is **sleep**_.

            He stood and started pacing the room in the hopes it’d work off the last of his restlessness. He ought to go to Allura for help. Some thing in him didn’t want him to. He justified it as she might be asleep, or busy. He told himself he had to deal with all of this himself.

            _“Don’t push me away. Don’t push any of us away,”_ she said in his memory. That time in the hallway. He’d been so angry. He’d been so greedy. Almost violent. And that had been her response. _Would she really think me a monster if I told her? “You can always confide in me if you need to.” Isn’t that what we tell each other? Why should she confide in me if I don’t confide in her?_

After all, she already knew he was uneasy about the arm. She’d seen the Galra energy inside it; she’d had the same reaction to it. She’d been feeding her energy directly into the arm more and more. It seemed to work better than anything else she did, even if it locked the arm up temporarily. Maybe _because_ it locked the arm up? It was disorienting to him, because he always instinctively wanted to fight against that feeling of paralysis, but he also felt better. Lighter, somehow. It was like getting an injection – sure, no one liked being poked with needles, but then the medicine soothed his symptoms, at least for a time.

He absolutely should go track her down. Wasn’t she on night watch tonight anyway? She could make him feel better, so he could get some sleep. But there was an almost sibilant _NO_ within him. Something in him that recoiled from the thought of her energy, specifically. But that made no sense: she calmed him, she energized him, she made him feel whole again, made the hunk of metal that was now his right arm feel almost normal. Why would he push back against that?

            But it was _her_ energy, her quintessence. She needed that to live. _Remember how long it took her to recover after the Balmera?_ He wasn’t asking for quite so much from her, not all at once, anyway. But he was literally draining her to sustain himself. _No. No, this isn’t about sharing a confidence or getting something off my chest. I can’t keep using her as a crutch, as… as some sort of battery. I have to find my own strength to deal with this myself._

            He made himself go lay down again and stared up at the ceiling. _I’ll get what rest I can, and if I’m tired tomorrow, well then, I’ll just go to sleep easier tomorrow night. I pulled through at the Garrison; I can do it now._

            He didn’t like any of this: the enemy weapon where his arm had been, the restlessness, the nightmares, and especially not using the woman he …cared for so much as if she were some sort of backup generator for him. But he’d focus on what he _could_ do, and work on the rest as he was able.

            He closed his eyes and laid there and tried to _will_ himself to shut off his mind and sleep.


End file.
